1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to integrity certification and verification. In particular, this invention relates to integrity certification and verification within a content consumption environment.
2. Description of the Related Art
One of the most important issues impeding the widespread distribution of digital documents via electronic commerce is the current lack of protection available for the intellectual property rights of content owners and providers during the distribution and use of those digital documents. Efforts to resolve this problem have been termed Intellectual Property Rights Management (IPRM), Digital Property Rights Management (DPRM), Intellectual Property Management (IPM), Digital Rights Management (DRM), Rights Management (RM) and Electronic Copyright Management (ECM).
Content providers often want their contents to be consumed by certified applications and systems that have a desired characteristic and/or behavior. The direct use of a public key infrastructure (PKI) makes it possible that application and system providers can certify their own products and content providers can verify the integrity of the applications and systems that are used to consume their contents.